American Adventure Pipe Club - Ice Age Trail - Fall 2023

Log in

SmokingPipes.com Updates

Watch for Updates Twice a Week

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

chilllucky

Lifer
Jul 15, 2018
1,202
3,112
Chicago, IL, USA
scoosa.com
downloadfile.jpg

My wife and I were lucky enough to join the Kearvaig Pipe Club for their Annual General Meeting in 2018. Unlike other clubs, their meetings consist of a grueling long distance trail hike in the Scottish Highlands ending at a Bothy - a publicly accessable shelter along the path - where hearths and well deserved pipes are light before rolling out bags for the night.

I have inquired a couple of times about who here might want to start such a tradition in the states and where we might roam with no real momentum gained. Spurred by the recent influx of new forum members from my soon-to-be home state of Wisconsin and a "build it and they will come" approach I am announcing the following:

Some long weekend in the last two weeks of September or the first two weeks of October next fall my wife and I will park the car at a trailhead, strap on our frame packs, and walk to one of the lean-to hiking shelters along the ice age trail to eat dinner and smoke pipes around a fire ring in the wilderness.

If this sounds like your kind of thing and you would like to join us, please respond in the thread or by PM. Include any info you have about the trail segments you have experience with, available dates, etc.

I will occasionally bump this thread as the trip comes together and I have a chance to do some practice hikes to check out some of the shelters. For my own convenience, I will be concentrating on the North/South section between My Horeb and Stevens Point. -Lucky
 

didimauw

Moderator
Staff member
Jul 28, 2013
10,660
37,325
SE WI
Me and the family hike the ice age trail every year. Sometimes a couple times a year. Never camped ON it though. What city is your entrance and exit point????

Edit: I see it now. That's where you will be "practicing?"

We are near the southern most part of Kettle Moraine. Such a beautiful trail!
 

chilllucky

Lifer
Jul 15, 2018
1,202
3,112
Chicago, IL, USA
scoosa.com
Me and the family hike the ice age trail every year. Sometimes a couple times a year. Never camped ON it though. What city is your entrance and exit point????

We are near the southern most part of Kettle Moraine. Such a beautiful trail!
If you search the trail alliance's online map, you can see where there is dispersed tent camping and reserve-able "primative shelters". That's where I'm going to concentrate my search. Three of 'em are in Kettle Moraine, but I'm trying to stay along the parts of the trail not in state parks because I think it would be harder to get away with a crowd of smokers in one.
 

SBC

Lifer
Oct 6, 2021
1,593
7,539
NE Wisconsin
I'm up in Niagara, on the UP border, but most of my backpacking has been CO/CA. I've never hiked any part of the IAT. I'll be interested to keep my eye on this.